Pastoral Letter 57

Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,

Grace and peace to you all.

After a devastating week of floods that caused much damage and loss of property, livestock and even some deaths, the heavy downpour has finally stopped. Tomorrow is Palm Sunday and as we will celebrate the triumphant entry of our Lord Jesus Christ to Jerusalem and come together to worship, let us raise our prayers to God and remember all those who have suffered and lost almost everything. We are grateful that the flood waters are receding, and people are able to return to their homes, but so many people return and find out that they have lost everything. In these desperate times let us come before God with our prayers, remember all those who suffered and lost so much, and seek His help.

The Holy Week is significant to the church and each and every Christian. Without the Resurrection of Christ, the church would not have existed to represent the body of Jesus Christ. The glorious resurrection of Jesus symbolises our rebirth, new life and the possibility of receiving the much-needed hope in hardship.

Our midweek programs, Time4U on Wednesdays and Movie/Pizza Night once a month on the first Tuesday of each month are going well with good number of attendees. If you are free, please join for both programs. The next Movie Night will be on Tuesday 6 April and we are going to watch “Beneath the Hill 60” as we come closer to ANZAC Day commemorations. All our programs run within our COVID-safe plans. And the good news is that sooner than later our State will go back to normal life, with further easing and almost giving us the freedom to move back to what we were doing before the COVID hit in March last year.

Though we will go back almost to normal life, we have decided to have this year’s Good Friday Service at home and hopefully that will be the last, and we will leave behind the most challenging year that we had.

God willing, we will have our next Congregational Meeting tomorrow after the Service. Please note that we will not have Morning Tea. Please plan to join us to receive the reports and discuss matters concerning our future plans, which will include progress on the Vital Ministry Consultation Report and the next steps.

In the meantime, please continue to pray, remembering those who need our care, support and love.

Here are some prayer points for this week:

1. Pray for our Service tomorrow and the Interim Congregational meeting.

2. Pray for church programs, as we go back to our weekly programs.

3. Pray for those who are vulnerable and going through difficult and turbulent times.

4. Pray for all those who have been affected from the recent devastating floods and lost so much.
4. Pray for world peace and ask for God’s blessings.

Please let me know if you have any prayer requests and we will pray together.

Krikor

MESSAGE

 The Lord Needs It!

Mark 11:1-11

Today we have listened to the scripture that describes the “Triumphal Entry of Jesus in Jerusalem.” His entry is greatly symbolic with incredible imagery for His Kingdom which is represented by the church. The entry is considered to be triumphal because of His dominion on the whole world.

Jesus has been on the way to Jerusalem for weeks or months, He is not in a hurry and He stops and teaches all along the way. He arrives on the last possible day to be involved in the full celebration of Passover. The place is packed; some historians say that there could have been more than 100 thousand people in Jerusalem that week. The noise of people and animals had to be deafening. You really can’t see anything except the sea of people. Everyone carrying something, food, water, bedding, cooking stuff. You name it.

This was the week before Passover, the most important festival of the year. It was a time of preparation for the huge celebration; celebration of freedom and salvation provided directly by the work of God through Christ, the promised Messiah. Generations before, God instructed the people to use the blood of a lamb to protect their families. And in Jesus’ day, the celebration of the event was still celebrated by the offering of blood and the sharing of a meal and telling the story.

So, Jesus is coming to town for the celebration of this great feast. He stays in Bethany at the Mount of Olives outside of the town by a few miles. Then He says:

“Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ tell him, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.’ “

So, one or two miles out, Jesus stops and sends two disciples, go get a donkey colt. He walks everywhere for months and now that He is within a couple of miles of Jerusalem, He needs a ride!

He sends two unnamed followers to the edge of the village on a heavy travel day to borrow a ride. Notice He did not tell them to ask first.

It is like He is asking these followers: “Go into town to the car dealer and you will find a new 4-wheel drive pickup truck. It will be brand new; no one has ever driven it will still have sticker on the front window. The key will be in the ignition. If the salesman or security guards ask you a question, tell them that the Lord needs it and will send it back in just a little while”.

Are these the disciples that Jesus did not like very much?

These two disciples could end up being stoned right on the spot.

He has asked them to do some strange things but, this seems a little dangerous for the disciples.

This is pretty radical stuff, and it gets our mind going.

The thing that really stands out is that the Lord needs something.

We don’t recall many times that Jesus says He needs or wants anything. Only on some occasions He makes requests. He asks for water at the well. He will borrow a tomb for the weekend. I am sure there are others, but we don’t recall Him complaining about His personal needs.

Couldn’t He just pray, and God give what He needs?

I think He could. But we know what He does are often very different things.

He needs something to help Him fulfil the prophesy.

The prophesy Jesus is going to fulfil comes from Zechariah 9:

“Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey”.

He wants willing people to carry out tasks on behalf of the Lord. The disciples must go and do obeying His command, and the owner or responsible person must let what he owns be used.

Jesus provides the directions of where and what to say and the disciples go up the road and get the ride.

They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked: “What are you doing, untying that colt?”

That’s where it could have gotten interesting. And even though they had started the task, when confronted they had a couple of choices. After all Jesus was not there to see the looks on the faces or to hear the tone of voice used.

– They could have just said: “O, is this yours, I thought it belonged to my friend…sorry about that. His must be up the way some place.”

 – They could have just run off before being confronted on this strange mission.

But they responded just as Jesus told them. They gave this vague response: “The Lord needs it and will send it back.” And the potential problem just vanished. They just made the statement and the people said OK.

They headed back down the road mission accomplished.

When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, He sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields.

If God needs anything that we have saying: “The Lord needs it”, we should be willing to give. Things like ability, mindset, feet which can perform many tasks, hands that carry and lift loads.

If the owner of the colt would have responded as we respond to God’s calls for help and encouragement, he probably would have said something like this:

“What are you doing? Where are you taking the donkey?” “The Lord needs it.” “So, what, I need it too.”

Usually that’s how we respond to God’s calls and requests.

But the question is “What does God need from us.”

1. God needs our time – We usually say: “Sorry God I don’t have time”. We consider time to be our possession and right.

2. God needs our strength – We usually say: “Sorry God, I can’t take responsibility; I am already exhausted”.

3. God needs our mind – We say: “Sorry I cannot even take one more responsibility. I have already many things on my hands.”

4. God needs our possessions – We say: “Sorry, I need them for myself. I have so many needs and financial obligations. Hence, I cannot give more or much”.

5. God needs us – We say: “I have my responsibilities, duties and dreams to come true; I cannot commit myself to you”.

The question is:

What kind of priority does God receive in my life?

       Or – What I am willing to give to God?

We should have the answers to these questions.

Clear-cut, concise and honest answers.

To that God who came to us through Jesus Christ. We need the Saviour to be saved, but we should not forget that we are needed for God.

On Palm Sunday it is easy to be caught up in the excitement of the crowd. It is easy to celebrate as the parade is passing by and easy to look forward to Easter morning.

From here it is easy to leap from this Sunday to Next Sunday and not remember that the Lord needs us and what we have and can offer. It is easy to just to go with what the crowd is doing and not be bothered by what we can do.

It is too easy to go with the flow during the week and never really have the will to do something for God. The Lenten journey is a time of reflection on how we live and seek the direction of God. A time to leave the crowd and stop listening and responding to what everyone else says is OK.

Today is a good day to choose to revive our relationship with the Father through the Son. It is a day to leave what we want and be willing to do something for God.

God needs us!

As Jesus needed it!

Let us Pray!